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SIC ITUR AD ASTRA." 




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hilomatbeait -lionet 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 




SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 



OCTOBER 6th, 1863. 



KING &. BAIRD, PRINTERS. 



SIC ITUR AD ASTRA. 



ADDRESSES 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



PHILOMATHEAN SOCIETY 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



ON THE OCCASION OF ITS 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 



OCTOBER 6th, 1863. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, No. 607 SANSOM STREET. 
18 64. 



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d 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 



The 6th of October, 1863, being the Fiftieth anniversary 
of the adoption of the constitution of the Philomathean 
Society, measures were early taken relative to the due cele- 
bration of that day. A joint committee of Senior and Junior 
members was appointed to report to the Society a plan 
for such a celebration, and make nominations for speakers on 
the occasion. The report which they presented was adopted, 
and they were continued as a committee of arrangements. 

The Hall of the University, and the Germania Orchestra 
were secured, and several of the most distinguished graduates 
of the Society invited to speak. A printed notice was sent to 
each one of the Senior, Nominal, and Honorary members, 
whose addresses could be obtained, inviting them to be present 
and to occupy seats on the stage. Invitations were also issued 
to those interested in the Society. 

On the 5th, the day but one before the appointed time, the 
Committee received a letter from the Rev. Dr. Muhlenburg, — 
the second Moderator of the Society, — saying that neither 
himself nor Dr. Cruse, — the first Moderator, who had pre- 
viously consented to preside, — would be able to be present as 
they had hoped to have been. In their absence, the Com- 
mittee were so fortunate as to secure the services of Dr. 
Isaac Hays, — a member of the second graduating class, — who 
kindly consented to act as presiding officer. In accordance 
with the invitations the members assembled in the Hall of the 
Society a few moments before the appointed time, in order 
that they might proceed in a body to the Hall of the Univer- 
sity. The procession, after a short delay to await the arrival 
of the Board of Trustees, who adjourned their stated meeting, 



which happened on that evening, for the purpose of attending 
the celebration, entered the Hall in the following order : — 
The Provost, and 
Faculty of the University, 
Trustees and Honorary Members, 
Presiding Officer, 
Speakers of the Evening, 
Officers of the Society, 
Senior Members, 
Nominal and Junior Members. 
As many as could be accommodated were placed upon the 
stage, the remainder in seats immediately in front. 

The exercises were opened with prayer by the Provost. 
After an interlude of music, the present Moderator, Mr. 
Howard Wood, on behalf of the Society, explained to the 
audience and senior members the purpose for which they had 
been called together, and bade them welcome. In conclusion, 
he stated that he had been directed to request Dr. Isaac Hays 
to preside on this occasion. Dr. Hays then replied in a 
few words and assumed the chair. After a second interlude 
of music, the speech prepared by the Rev. Dr. Cruse for 
the occasion, was read by the Secretary of the Committee, 
together with several letters from gentlemen who had been 
invited to speak, but were not able to be present. After 
another interval the first orator of the evening, Dr. Kingston 
Goddard was presented, who pronounced an appropriate ora- 
tion. He was followed by the Rev. Dr. Hall of Trenton. 
After which the meeting was dismissed with the benediction 
by the Provost. 



ADDRESS OF MR. HOWARD WOOD ? 

MODERATOR OF THE SOCIETY, 



Ladies and Gentlemen : — Fifty years ago a small party of 
students met within these walls for the purpose of establishing 
a literary society. They were actuated by no common motives ; 
they were influenced by a wish to promote their intellectual 
improvement. They felt the need of some other method of 
culture, besides that pursued in the regular course of study, 
and were eager to supply that need. Besides these sentiments 
there was that nobler desire to lay before their successors 
greater chances of education. How these gentlemen succeeded, 
the result has shown ; who they were, we need hardly say ; 
many of them stand in your presence this evening, and are, 
no doubt, well known to you. From that small beginning they 
have continually advanced and are now among the most dis- 
tinguished citizens of our country. It is not surprising, there- 
fore, that we should look upon such predecessors with feelings 
of hope and encouragement, and strive to follow the great 
examples set by them. 

And to you, most respected and honored founders of our 
beloved society, I give heartfelt welcome in behalf of its junior 
members. Your names are already familiar to us ; we have 
met with them again and again in our archives ; they confront 
us upon every leaf and page of our minutes. But we had hardly 
hoped to make your personal acquaintance so soon ; you were to 
us only as objects of veneration and awe. But now that we have 
met you face to face, deeper feelings incite our minds. Your 
presence among us this evening proves to us that you have not 
at least, forgotton the clays of the student ; that the old asso- 
ciations of college life have still their influence. It shows that 



you still take some interest in the society founded and fostered 
by you. And we thank you most cordialily for the kindness 
thus shown us. It infuses new life and vigor into us, to see the 
men to whom we are already so much indebted, willing to assist 
us still further. 

And while we thus look back upon you as the source of 
what we hold most dear at college, a heavy sense of responsi- 
bility weighs upon us — a doubt whether we too have performed 
our duty and have done all that could be done to perpetuate 
the great work so nobly begun. Our consciences will, I think, 
acquit us, upon the fact of ivishing to do so ; but have we lost 
no chance, neglected no opportunity of carrying it out ? We 
beg you not to judge us too severely. Since you left our halls, 
the community of Philomatheans has passed through many 
phases. At times, a gloom has settled upon us, but it was 
only momentary ; it was but to make the subsequent bright- 
ness more welcome. But we feel ourselves well rewarded for 
whatever trials we have passed through, by being able to cele- 
brate Our fiftieth anniversary in such good company. 

And now we would close by making a final request of you, 
never doubting that, coming as it would from such wise heads 
and sincere hearts, it will have a lasting effect upon us. It is 
that you bid us, " God speed for the future." 

I have been directed to request Dr. Isaac Hays to preside 
for us on this occasion. 



REPLY OF DR. HAYS. 



In accepting the honor which you have conferred on me, 
Mr. Moderator, I beg you to believe that I have not the vanity 
to suppose it is bestowed as a personal compliment to myself. 
I know full well that it is designed as a tribute of respect to 
the early members of our Society, and as I happen to be the 
oldest of them present on this occasion, I have been selected 
as the recipient. 

On their behalf, therefore, I thank you for this mark of con- 
sideration, and have only to regret that some one of my 
cotemporaries, more competent to preside, is not present. 

Not having been informed that I should be invited to preside 
until a very late period, I have had no time afforded me for 
preparation, and being entirely unaccustomed to speak in pub- 
lic, I fear to trust myself to give expression to the emotions 
and reflections which crowd upon me at this moment. 

When I look back for half a century, — recall the pleasant 
days passed in college, and remember the valuable lessons and 
high inspirations here received, which through all after-life 
have been a source of pleasure, of comfort and of advantage 
to me, I feel that I owe a debt of gratitude to my alma 
mater which can never be repaid. 

The joyous scenes of student days rise up before me with 
the remembrance of the loved companions of that period, but 
these pleasant recollections are not unmingled with sadness, for 
when I ask where are those valued friends of my youth, those 
early members of our Society, who laboured so zealously and 
dilligently to promote the objects of our association, the 
mournful response comes to me, that nearly all of them now 
repose beneath the cold clod of the valley. 



ADDRESS OF THE REV. DR. CRUSE. 

READ BY THE SECRETARY OF THE COMMITTEE. 

Gentlemen : — Assembled as we are for the. purpose of 
commemorating the day from which we date the existence of this 
Society, I must cast myself upon your indulgence, in opening 
the subject, for the remarks that I may offer. We are now 
entering upon the fiftieth year since the organization in 1813, 
so that our Society, thought not fifty years old, has reached its 
fiftieth year, and will be at its close just half a century in 
being. Thus, though not as venerable for age as many similar 
societies, its duration has evinced a principle of vitality, which 
we trust and believe will be as perpetual as the honored Alma 
Mater which gave it birth, and wish that the maturer child may 
live with its mother until the consummation of all things, sup- 
plying the material for the nurture of literature, virtue and 
religion until the end. 

It is not the least among the reasons for mutual congratulation 
on the present occasion, that besides the many distinguished, 
respected and esteemed names that appear on your catalogue, 
or that are here with us now, there are so many of the few 
that participated in the formation yet living, and of these again 
what is still more worthy of note, that of those who were elected 
to sit under the canopy, the first three are still among us, (and 
present with us.) How it came to pass that your present chair- 
man was made first Moderator, or that the second Moderator, the 
Rev. Dr. Muhlenberg, was not the first, I do not explain, unless 
it was the accidental difference of seniority that influenced the 
choice, but for which, you and I would have the pleasure now 
of listening to the opening address of my reverend friend and 
brother, the second Moderator with much more satisfaction I am 



10 

sure than I can give. I could equally wish to yield the chair to 
our common friend Dr. George B. Wood whose merit and well- 
known eminence in his profession have long since justified the 
election of the third Moderator. Your present chairman is 
happy to say that if it were a case of any competition at all 
he would not only on the score of esteem and friendship, but 
of solid merit in their favor respectfully decline it. 

In looking back upon the long series of years that have 
passed away since the first measures were taken to give a 
permanent form to this retiring literary arena, we have a long 
line of those from year to year enlisted in the career of 
literary attainments, which shows, that the Society has not been 
without contributing its quota to the general mind, and though 
it must, in the nature of things, expect to share in the great 
law of universal change, yet it will, and must, as long as it 
endures, continue to furnish its periodic corps of those who by 
this voluntary discipline of scholastic life within these walls, 
will be ready to enter upon that more trying discipline which 
awaits us all in practiced life. And there, indeed, we need all 
the discipline we can gather in the schools to keep our lamps 
unextinguished whilst brevi spatio mutantur scecla animantum 
et quasi cursores vital lam,pada tradunt. It is now just half a 
century since the then senior class of this University enter- 
tained the proposition and carried it through to form a Society, 
the objects of which should be congenial with, and promotive 
of the studies prosecuted in the classes. It was to be for 
mental, what the old gymnasium was for bodily strength, an 
arena for mutual improvement, where the precaution of secrecy 
was rather a shield for the diffident, and the encouragement of 
retiring merit, too often unconscious of its capacity (by its 
tendency to isolation.) After some informal meetings, and 
conferences the subject was submitted to the Provost for 
approval, and the organization and constitution completed 
under the title of The Philomathean Society of the University 
of Pennsylvania. This was not indeed the first attempt of 
the kind in the collegiate department of the University, others 
had been made before, but none of them survived the class 



11 

that formed it. Of one of these the anecdote is told, known 
to most of us, that it became more noted for its noisy sessions 
or adjournments then its improvement. The Provost being 
requested to suggest a name having the three labials kt 3r?a, ci, 
is said to have hinted whether they might not be called the 
Polypliloisbcean 7to7.v(f%o^{5ot.ap .Society. History does not say 
say whether they accepted the name or not, but its subsequent 
silence seems to imply they either profited by the pleasantry 
to solicit no characteristic name at least, or else they allowed 
the class to pass on without further effort to revive a society. 
It was after several such attempts to establish a literary asso- 
ciation among the students had failed, that the Philomathean 
Society was formed ; it was at a time also when a new period 
was ushered in by a complete change in the faculty of the 
collegiate department, and when the then senior class that 
formed the Society had passed from one Provost to another, 
with the disadvantage of an interregnum before the new 
faculty was settled. It is not our purpose to enter into par- 
ticulars, but in order to understand the better the relative 
position of the then senior class and the bearing upon the for- 
mation of the Society; it seems enough to state that whether it 
was advantage or disadvantage the class had passed through 
the regime of three Provosts successively at the time of its 
commencement. 

The Rev. Dr. Andrews, Provost at the time of our entrance 
into college, was at the head of the University, but did not 
survive the first year of our collegiate course. His decease 
was followed by an interval of some months under the Rev. 
Dr. McDowell, who once held the Provostship, and during 
whose temporary superintendence to supply the place of Dr. 
Andrews, the Rev. Dr. Beasly was called to fill the station. 
Dr. Robert Patterson was at the same time appointed Professor 
of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, and Mr. James 
Thompson Professor of Languages, forming thus a new faculty. 
It was about the time of these changes and the concomitant 
organization that the proposal was made, and carried into 
effect to form a Society of Students of the University with a 
view to literary and scientific scholarship. 



12 

At this time, there was yet standing in unimpaired finish 
that once admired structure reared by Pennsylvania as a resi- 
dence for the President of the United States, and intended 
especially for the first President, General Washington. Most 
of us well remember, it was on the present square, midway 
between Market and Chestnut streets, and for a long time 
even after its destination was changed, was known as the Presi- 
dent's House. The President we know never occupied it, and 
declined it as a present, and it was then conveyed to the trus- 
tees of the University. 

In the south-east corner of this edifice, on the third floor, 
overlooking a then large extent of vacant grounds, there was, 
as many of us will recollect, a fine, spacious room some 
twenty-five feet square, which, together with two smaller 
rooms adjoining, was assigned to us as Philomathean Hall. 
There it was that we began the Society now entered upon its 
fiftieth year. It was of course a time of much interest to the 
class, and we could wish the old building were still in existence 
as a monument of interesting facts now fading from memory. 

In this rapid glance at the Society's origin, we are reminded 
by the retrospect, of the interesting period of history that 
fills up the interval and makes it altogether unsurpassed by 
any other period since the beginning of the Christian era. 
The world may be said to be almost entirely revolutionized 
within this half century, not by arms but by the arts of peace. 
It was a great change, a marked revolution when Christianity 
first triumphed over political paganism — a great change when, 
in after ages, the art of printing made the thoughts of one 
man, the thoughts and views of thousands and tens of thous- 
ands almost as soon as he could commit them to the pen, — a 
great change initiated by the discovery of Columbus, and still 
more important changes at the period of the Reformation. 
But all these appear to us at this day only preparatory, tribu- 
tary movements towards the rapid, wondrous developments of 
the nineteenth century. The world has unraveled more of its 
own resources for the benefit of man than in any period here 
tofore. 



13 

A terrible and dark cloud has indeed come over us, in the 
fair and flattering calculations for the future of the age, and 
here at least in our country we have been compelled to pause 
in our conclusions, by the long-dreaded calamities of a civil 
war — 

The hand-breadth, cloud the sages feared, 

Its bloodj rain is dropping, 
The poisonous plant the fathers spared, 

All else is overtopping. 

Yet as we mourn the sad necessity which for a time at least 
seems to arrest the progress of civilization and to defeat the 
hopes of a republic like ours — a republic in theory at least, 
only consistent with principles of universal emancipation — I 
say as we lament this seeming interruption to the progressive 
march of light, right and truth, I believe that after all, when 
the storm is over, we shall have more reason to rejoice in its 
results, than we now have or shall have to mourn over its 
sorrows. The wheel of time cannot go back. The law of 
God's universe is onward ! and seeming retrocessions are 
only seeming. They are like signals to the halting traveler 
to a near and better road where he may find more safety, more 
certainty to reach his destination. And though, as in our 
national crisis now, the halting progress is fraught with pain, 
anxiety and blood, and great the sacrifices to cast out the evil 
spirit that has brought about this national calamity, yet a due 
acknowledgment of this may help us, under God, to a perfect 
cure of the evil. And though we may be called to a yet 
severer trial than that now is, yet we may meet it with God on 
our side. 

"For who that leans on His right arm 
Was ever yet forsaken ? 
What righteous cause can suffer harm, 
If He its part has taken." 

We naturally turn from the past to the future, that future 
which to us all is expected, canvassed, scanned, and almost 
measured by our hopes and fears, and to which we look for- 



14 

ward for the solution of the past. We hail the anniversary 
with mutual congratulations, and best wishes, and prayers for 
times to come — an interesting time undoubtedly to all, to none 
more so than to those few of us who were instrumental in 
giving the society an existence which has thus far stood the 
test, and which by all the indications of the present gives an 
earnest of perpetuated vitality. To none can it be a time of 
deeper interest in its reminiscences, than to your first presiding 
officers, who, at the end of so long a series of years, are yet 
in the land of the living, and though not all present may send 
their gratulations to the assembled members in Philomathean 
Hall. And as we cast our eye into that mysterious future, 
not knowing what even a day may bring forth, how many 
earnest questions press upon us which we should be glad to 
resolve or see resolved into a happy issue. 

Fifty years ago, with all the party ferments that have come 
and gone we still had peace within our borders. We all set- 
tled down in the belief that the United States was our country 
and whether born North or South — in Maine or Georgia, in 
Boston or Charleston, the one was as much our country as the 
other. Sectional differences might, as they always will, create 
partialities, but the great interests were one. But since those 
days alas, how changed! quantum mutatus ah illo ! The 
young giant had grown strong and mighty — but- a reptile had 
been fed and nurtured at his side, until outgrowing all control 
of law and right, it has dealt the virus of its poison against 
the hand that fostered it, and now a gigantic struggle, more 
fearful that that of the fabled Titans, is the present war. 

Whatever be the result of this our national struggle, 
although we cannot but believe it will terminate in favor of 
justice and humanity ; whoever among the senior members of 
the society, may live to see the end, there are none that can 
expect to see another fiftieth. If any of the classes survive 
the present so long, then indeed they will have something like 
a parallel with the day we have reached. 

In the comparison we are reminded of the sacred rites of 
tKc fabled Prometheus, where the torch race from the grove of 



15 

Academus to the city, stimulated the Grecian youth to a eon- 
test of speed in which we see an expressive symbol of the 
career of life. The race itself started from the altar of Pro- 
metheus. The racers, with lighted torches kindled at the altar, 
were to vie with each other, in bearing the torch unextin- 
guished to the goal. Whoever gave out handed his torch to 
the nearest racer. One of great authority, in allusion to these 
races, has said, " So run that ye may obtain." There is a race 
of life where, like the prizes in the games, there is some- 
thing to be obtained. Cicero, in reference to these Promethean 
sacred rites, observes, as it does not imply that he who 
receives the torch has been swifter of foot than the one who 
has delivered it, so in life, the one that yields is not always 
the inferior, and so we are not to judge the merits of the race 
by one feature alone. Yet he alone was crowned who brought 
his burning lamp to the goal. And thus also with peculiar 
fitness the analogy applies to every generous emulation. In 
the symbolic device, of the society, the burning lamp, supplied 
by human hand, seems only like a part or preliminary of the 
Promethean race. The nurturings of diligent care and study 
cherishing the lamp of mind, as the only ground of solid 
excellence, becomes a torch race at the altar of Prometheus. 
For though there may be other ways of ascending to the skies, 
besides a course of study, yet it is as true now as it was of old. 
" Nihil sine labor e vita mortalihus dedit" What the old 
Roman (Lucretius) has made the picture of life in the Lampa- 
dedromia is as applicable to every institution aspiring to 
excellence. So the participants of Philomathean Hall have no 
objects in view but the great concerns of life. The association 
is a Promethean torch-race where, class after class, a portion 
retire handing over the unextinguished light to others. So 
the lamp of mind is kept burning, from one, through years of 
succession where every generation is expected to preserve 
what has been transmitted, whilst these again deliver up the 
trust undiminished, unimpaired to the next — 

Sic, quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt. 



16 

Among the good effects resulting from the Society, there 
has been the formation of another, with similar or the same 
objects in view ; under the same auspices of the College, its 
very name, indicative of zeal, combined with wisdom, is an in- 
direct tribute to the Philomethean Hall, which it proposes to 
rival. May it be to both a generous competition, an emula- 
tion in which each society will find its advantage only in hon- 
oring each others merits and following what is good. 

After all, it reminds us of the great lesson that underlies all 
others, life is the career for us all, and it has its cares, its 
duties, its responsibilities. Grave considerations these, and 
that we may finish our course with the humble hope that we 
have not lived in vain. As the race must be run so the lamp 
must be kept burning. It is the lamp of mind that needs all 
nurturing care, it is the oil of truth that must feed the flame, 
it is the hand of virtue, humanity and righteousness, that must 
hold it up in the race and make it available for all that is good 
and great. A noble problem, a noble strife ! an emulation that 
lives only in the desire of doing good, and which like angels in 
heaven, will rejoice over one sinner that repenteth. It is an 
emulation which, descending from heaven, is planted as a ladder 
on earth for us to ascend, and is thus to be the moving power 
of every onward step in the torch-race of life. For the Grecian 
youth the altar of Prometheus was erected in the. groves of the 
Academy, and the race was thence to the city of Minerva. 
The altar itself was the symbol of forecast, ingenuity, inven- 
tion, and the rival racers symbolized the candidates in science, 
literature and the arts. 

In this Promethean age in which we live, this age of artistic 
invention and scientific application, we may well find a paral- 
lel to the ancient fables, with perhaps the great difference, that 
our facts are stranger than their fictions. We have no Prome- 
thean altar indeed, at which to kindle the lamp of mind, and 
our onward strides to the goal of approval, have no sympathy 
with those that sped their course to the walls of Athens. But 
we have our light taken, not from the structure made with 
hands, but from that light which, coming from on high, is only 



17 

another name for eternal truth. Nurtured from that fountain 
it can never die away, but advancing, ascending, rising high as 
its source, must grow and spread and rule from age to age 
and the consummation of ages. 

With such difference in our favor, we have also a nobler race 
to run, a nobler prize to win. It may not be glory, it may not 
be fame, it may not be wealth, or power, or even health, but it 
will be above all the approval of our own hearts, and the ap- 
proval of Him who is greater than our heart. What more 
than this we need shall be dealt out largely — for that is the 
Almighty verdict — they shall be added. We shall all have 
sufficient in the struggle here to gain the prize there, and when 
the torch-race of life is run we shall resign the lamp of mind, 
unextinguished here only to revive in the immortal splendor of 
that hereafter which knows no extinction or decay. 

Allow me, gentlemen, in conclusion, to thank you for this 
attention by which I have been honored, and as it is the last 
occasion in which I can expect to share in your transactions, 
so I may at this stage, at least, and as one of the racers hand 
the lamp to another. Gentlemen, as we have met now, we 
shall never meet again, our present forms an epoch which can 
only be realized once in a lifetime, and before another semi- 
centennial celebration, we shall not any of us have occasion, 
call, or even interest in the race. A sober, solemn thought, 
but no dream. 

Happy, if then, in obedience to the behests of Sovereign 
Goodness, we must retire from the arena, we may, with cheer- 
fulness, give place to those that follow, with the consciousness 
that whilst we may not have done always what we ivould, we 
have done at least in the direction of right, what we could. 

Failures here, indeed, may again create a pause, but as in 
the career of life, so in its termination, the universal remedy 
is only there, where we find the universal good. 

Et sic faventibus vobis lampada trado. 



REPORT FROM MEMORY 



ADDRESS OF REV. DR. GODDARD. 



Upon being introduced to the audience by the Chairman, 
the Rev. Dr. Goddard prefaced his remarks by expressing the 
deep regret which he felt from the absence of the principal 
speakers. In these feelings he doubted not that the audience 
fully sympathised with him. Among the list of its members 
the Philoraathean Society was proud to enroll the names of 
some of the wisest and greatest men of a present generation. 
From them your Committee had selected a few, whose names 
had doubtless been influential in gathering together so large 
and intelligent an audience as that which was assembled in 
this renowned Hall this evening. From them we had a right 
to expect those words of eloquence and wisdom which like 
" apples of gold in baskets of silver," would have at once 
benefitted and delighted. To himself, however, the speaker 
remarked this disappointment was the keener, since his duty 
that evening was to have been rather of a secondary nature. 
Having already been honored by being selected as the orator 
at the late Biennial celebration of this Society — his place 
upon the stage was more to show his continued interest in an 
association of which he had formerly been Moderator, than 
to add any thing to the entertainment of the audience or the 
attractions of the evening. The most that he had anticipated 
doing was after the inspiring influence of the eloquent men 
whose presence had been anticipated to-night, had been felt, to 
have dropped a few warm and earnest words in addition to 
their more labored efforts ; just as clouds reflect in hues of 



20 

purple, and silver, and gold, and crimson, the brilliant rays of 
the departing sun, not rendering them more luminous, but 
giving them some new hue of beauty. With these few words 
of apology the Rev. Doctor proceeded : 

The celebration of the semi-centennial anniversary of the 
Society necessarily awakens in the heart mixed emotions. 
The mind impressed with the present, still is insensibly led 
back among the scenes of the past, and busies itself too 
with the anticipations of the future. With a reviving power 
it peoples this Hall with forms that have long since been laid 
beneath the sod, and once again fills it with tones that in 
times past eloquently breathed the instructions of wisdom and 
virtue. Such anniversaries have a resurrection power. By 
the influence of this mysterious truth the dead live once more. 
Voices are heard around us to-night in the halls of memory 
that have long been hushed in death. Eyes sparkle with the 
brilliant flashes of genius and intellect that have long since 
closed upon earthly scenes. And forms rise up before us from 
the buried past who once moved amidst these familiar scenes, 
and were associated with all that is around about us. The 
past of this Society — the recorded history of this University 
— what a noble monument they become to the learning and 
virtue of Philadelphia ! Her dead are like costly jewels in 
caskets, not lost, but only put aside ; on such occasions as 
this to shine and flash in the goldon setting of memory like 
crown jewels around the brow of this Institution. 

Upon these walls hang the portraits of some of these 
worthies of a past generation. Pleasant and profitable will it 
be for us to recall some of their excellencies. Upon my right 
there hangs the embodiment which the genius of the painter 
has left of the late Professor of Ancient Languages. With a 
frame as ponderous as his great learning, how well he filled his 
chair ! Born like many others of the eloquent and erudite in 
Ireland, he brought to these shores all his native enthusiasm 
for the classics. Hundreds now occupying enviable positions 
in the world of literature owe all their thirst for learning to 
him. Bough but ardent in character, he awakened the enthu- 



21 

siasm of his scholars. Never did there beat a warmer and 
truer heart than that which ever palpitated in sympathy with 
the difficulties and trials of his pupils, in the broad bosom of 
the late Samuel B. Wylie, D.D. His industry and zeal 
stored his mind with classic lore ; whilst his pure Christianity 
consecrated it as Moses did the ornaments of the Israelitish 
maidens : to the service of God ! Quietly he sleeps in an 
honored grave. Literature and Religion followed hand in 
hand as mourners to his burial. But long in the memory of 
the living — and forever in the affections of the just in glory 
will the name of Samuel B. Wylie live. 

There upon that wall hangs the portrait of one more youth- 
ful in face and form. He too lent the powers of his cultivated 
mind to the promotion of the interests of this Institution. 
Amidst other embodiments of genius and acquirement he 
stood like some exquisitely cut statue of the purest marble — 
the representative of purity and learning. Many men of 
intellect and erudition have occupied the chair of Mental and 
Moral Philosophy in this and kindred Institutions, whose 
names have been interwoven with the subjects of which they 
treated, but for discriminating judgment, severe taste, ele- 
gance of expression, beauty of thought, and the loftiest dignity 
of a refined manner, the late Professor Henry Reed stands 
unrivalled. In grateful remembrance of his devotion to her 
interests, history has inscribed his name among those who 
have won immortality. And nature's light, in remembrance of 
the worshipper who bowed at her shrine, writes upon the 
crests of the roiling billows in letters of golden lustre the 
epitaph of him who sleeps amidst the corals and the pearls 
beneath. 

The older members of this Society will not fail to recall the 
person and name of him who occupied the same chair immedi- 
ately before the lamented Reed. Edward Rutledge, of all 
men with whom it has been my fortune to be associated, pos- 
sessed in the fullest decree the mental and moral qualifications 
necessary for a successful teacher. Born in the South, he 
seems to have drunk in warmth of heart and fascination of 



22 

manner with the flower-scented gales that fanned him. He 
lived happily at a time when men knew no North and no 
South, but when we were all the children of one great family. 
Here in these rooms to northern youth, and side by side with 
northern men in perfect harmony he devoted those faculties 
that amidst southern influences had been so happily matured. 
Here he lived, here he was loved, and here he died. Nor do I 
believe that it would have been possible, with such blood flow- 
ing in his veins, for Edward Rutledge to have contemplated, 
save with horror, the dismemberment of this great Republic. 
Nor were the tears less precious, nor did they sparkle with a 
less pure lustre as they dropped upon his coffin, because they 
fell from the eyes of northern youth. These were days when 
even the dark form of a present rebellion did not cast its 
shadow over the land. When the seed even of a present 
treason had not germinated. 

Though not among the dead, there is one whose name must 
ever be mentioned in these Halls with honor. With the blood 
of Franklin flowing in his veins, Alexander Dallas Bache has 
proved himself worthy of his high ancestry. His former 
pupils can never forget him. A nation will ever remember 
him. For whilst his wise progenitor wrote his name upon the 
clouds in letters of flashing light, it has been to the honor of 
his son that the memorial of his labors are recorded upon 
every shore and inlet of our vast coast. Sounding the depths 
of the ocean ! he has written his name among that immortal 
list of human benefactors whose honor is as wide and vast as 
the great sea itself. All honor to Alexander Dallas Bache ! 

But we cannot, continued the speaker, close our address 
without some allusions to those sad events that are now 
occurring. When he who addresses you sat with others a 
Student in these Halls, our classes were filled with representa- 
tive scholars from nearly every State in the Union. They 
came, attracted by the high reputation of our teachers, from 
the frozen fields of the distant North, from the industrious 
villages of the Middle and Eastern States, from the shores of 
the broad Atlantic, and from the warm regions of the South, 






23 

where the gales from the Gulf become perfumed with the 
odors of the blossoms of the orange. A band of brothers we 
were. Whose only contest was that of honorable strife for 
learning and place. We knew no divisions, and were but 
children of the Republic. Before us the wide extent of the 
whole country offered itself as the field of our enterprise. As 
the stars that shoot from the falling rocket scatter to the four 
quarters of the heaven, tracing their pathway in lines of light, 
so emancipated from the Halls of Instruction to every quarter 
of the land we went on honorable missions to our fellow men — 
the northern man often to the South, and the southern not 
unfrequently to the North. 

How changed the scenes to-day. Godless rebellion has 
broken the golden links of a common brotherhood. Treason 
has arrayed against the best and freest Government on 
earth, her benefitted children. And those once students in 
these Halls by every sentiment of justice and principle of 
loyalty are bound to contend, until treason be laid low and 
rebellion be crushed. And that end will and must be accom- 
plished. The edifice of freedom will once more rise again in 
more than its pristine extent and magnificence, the stronger 
because its mighty stones will have been cemented by the 
blood of patriots. Our land shall once more stand before the 
world, the great High Priest of Freedom. As too before 
the altar of liberty the offering of a world's gratitude is pre- 
sented, upon the breast plate will be found the lustrous hue of 
precious stones, each State having its own peculiar device and 
color — not one wanting — all there — all there — united too in 
their setting of gold — united once again and forever ! ! 

As the remarks of the Reverend speaker were entirely ex- 
temporaneous and unpremeditated, we have only given a 
meagre outline of them. 



ADDRESS OF THE REV. DR. HALL. 



There is a time of life when any term of years long enough 
to be expressed by even the fractions of a century, seems to 
denote a great longevity. And, doubtless, the junior Philoma- 
theans of this evening celebrate our " semi-centenary " with a 
very reverential apprehension of the antiquity of the Society. 
I must confess to having given way to this illusion upon first 
hearing of the projected celebration, and until I recollected 
that my own membership fell within the first decade of the 
half century. Then, of course, I concluded that the Society 
was not so old after all. And when some of us were ad- 
dressed, in the opening of this meeting, as " venerable " gen- 
tlemen, we trust that the audience observed it was not to us 
as the founders of 1813, but as accidentally occupying the 
seats where they were expected to appear, that the compli- 
ment was directed. 

Yet, a representative of the graduating class of 1823, com- 
ing here to-night, cannot but acknowledge that it takes less 
than half a century to change the face of his associations. 
The lofty rooms where we recited — the "Prayer Hall " where 
we worshipped — the third-story corner where we hid the 
Philomathean mysteries — the sublime Rotunda which echoed 
every slam of the double doors, and in so doing shocked every 
nerve of Professor Thomson — that entire old Washington 
palace has been swept away ; and all the consolation that 
remains is that which has just been administered by my pre- 
decessor on this rostrum — the old bricks were worked into the 
new walls, though plastered on both sides out of sight. 

Beasley, Thomson and Patterson, who so long constituted 
the full academical faculty, have each in turn had to say, 



26 

like the dying schoolmaster, " boys, it grows dark ; the school 
is dismissed." And as we recall the Board of Trustees of 
1823, such names as I am sure must still be heard with honor 
in this community — as of White, Wilson, Tilghman, Rawle, 
Duponceau, Chauncey, Sergeant, Meredith, Hopkinson and 
Cadwalader, we have to say of each " abiit ad plures" — he 
has gone to our majority — the contemporaries of their eminent 
days. Of that venerated body, which so fitly represented the 
professional, social, moral and literary character of Philadel- 
phia, only two survive ; but they are such, that the honor of the 
past, as well as the present, is fully sustained in their names, 
for they are Horace Binney and Joseph R. Ingersoll. 

In College and Society reminiscences nothing is more 
striking than the contrast of the relative position in which we 
then stood as boys, and now stand as men. We look through 
the old rolls of our fellows in the class-room and in Philoma- 
thean Hall ; we remember the familiarity of first names and 
nicknames with which all mingled in the common arena of 
study and of sport; but we look at the same names now, and it 
is in the Honorable Judge, the gallant Major- General, the 
Reverend Doctor, the Bight Reverend Father, the Modera- 
tor of the General Assembly, that we recognize the breadth 
of the transition from the school-times ; and in many instances 
also the height of the transition — not simply to titles and 
dignities, but to character and influence not unworthy of this 
venerable school. 

The Societies of a College deserve to be ranked among the 
most useful auxiliaries of its training ; and if they fail in this, 
it is because they are not improved by their young members 
according to the design of their institution, and the means 
they furnish. If, because disconnected from compulsory 
studies, their exercises are treated as idle amusements, their 
character, which is essentially literary, becomes degraded to 
that of a jovial club. Philomath is the synonyme of scholar — 
a lover of learning, and one who loves to learn. And while 
the rigors of the recitation-room and its text-books are not 
expected to be reproduced in the Hall, nor the Friday even- 



27 

ings to be only a prolonged session of the class, it is to be 
expected that the course of the Society will accord with the 
general objects of education, and be observed by its members 
as such. All learning is not profound ; all knowledge does 
not demand severe study. The curriculum of the school 
affords material for the more elaborate application ; there is 
room elsewhere to cultivate the lighter, the more graceful 
accomplishments of the scholar. Elegant literature is to be 
pursued as well as the dead languages and mathematics. 
Facility and force of expression, whether by pen or tongue, 
in conversation, debate or declamation ; criticism ; practical 
rhetoric ; acquaintance with books and the art of using a 
library ; even certain social refinements, worthy of the early 
attention of students who are, or are to be, gentlemen as well 
as scholars — these important objects may find a scope and a 
stimulus in a society true to its Philomathean name, which 
cannot be found so well in the more strictly didactic form of 
lessons, or the more formal intercourse of students under the 
discipline of teachers. The Society may be made the exercise, 
the practice, to realize the principles of the lecture and the 
book. The Master retires — the pupils try themselves in their 
own way. The emulation may be all the more free and 
generous for having its excitement in the voluntary contests 
of the Society, where there is no reward beyond the vote of 
the evening, rather than in the protracted competition for 
grades, with an eye to the salutatories and the valedictory. 

The Philomathean student will aim at something more than 
the Honors, or his Bachelor's diploma. These are good things 
to aim at, when viewed as the reward of scholarship and good 
conduct ; but the laurels may be won by the superficial from 
the thorough. Examinations are not always the fair test of 
merit. It is related in the life of Lord Eldon, that when, as 
plain John Scott, he came to be examined for his first degree 
at Oxford, and was put on trial for Hebrew and History, the 
first question was " what is the Hebrew for < the place of a 
skull ?' ' The future Lord Chancellor was not so forgetful 
of his English New Testament as to hesitate in answering 



28 

"Golgotha." The next test was, "who founded University 
College ?" The candidate promptly replied, "King Alfred." 
"Very well," said the examiner, "you are competent for 
your degree." The exposure of the state of both the great 
Universities of England, which Sir William Hamilton once 
made in the Edinburgh Review, and the Report of a Royal 
Commission appointed as late as 1850, to investigate the 
condition of Oxford, give a view of the discipline in those 
boasted foundations which make it credible that Scott's ex- 
amination has its parallels annually. And so it may happen 
in our best institutions that a student, both at his admission 
and departure, may pass an examination ; but it is not his 
Diploma any more than his matriculation, that proves his love 
of knowledge, or his success in learning. His own exertions, 
in the regular improvement of all his opportunities, are to 
make him what he ought to be. Academic titles no more 
attest intrinsic worth, than (according to the familiar figure 
of Burns) the mere lettering and stamping of the coin makes 
it a guinea. 

The mention of the Oxford Commission reminds me that its 
Secretary, and probably the compiler of the seven hundred 
folio pages of its Report, was the biographer of Dr. Arnold — ■ 
Arnold of Laleham, Rugby and Oxford. It would be hard 
for either teacher or pupil of our day and country, who have, 
or desire to have, any enthusiasm in their work, to find a 
more healthful and suggestive embodiment of the true spirit of 
education, than is to be found in that noble character and that 
noble career. He knew both boys and men. He looked both 
at soul and mind. The object of his devout aspiration, 
whether tutor, head master, or professor, was to inspire the 
youth with ambition to live worthy of their immortality, and 
to keep this before them in the whole culture of the intellect. 
It was supremely in this light that Arnold contemplated his 
charge, and not as if the duty of either master or scholar were 
exhausted in the routine of tasks. Speaking in this place, of 
course, without reference to any peculiarities of his religious 
or political opinions, or scholastic methods, I should be happy 



29 

if any expressions of mine may induce Philomatlieans to read 
Arnold's "Life and Correspondence," and his " School-Chapel 
Sermons," if it were only with a view to the evidence they 
furnish how consistent is the spirit of true Manliness with 
Scholarship and Religion ; and that the sentiment is as true 
to day as when the King of Israel uttered it to his son, that 
only he who "walks in the ways of the Lord God," is 
" strong," and " shows himself a Man." 

There is no need of adding to what has been so well said 
this evening, and so well received, with reference to- the duties 
of national loyalty. Let me, however, take advantage of the 
word and the enthusiasm, to remind our young friends that 
the true loyalist, like the true man, is he who is faithful not 
to one or some only, but to all the relations of his place. 
This principle holds the scholar to loyalty to his literary and 
religious trainings, as part of enlightened patriotism. Such, 
at least, has been the doctrine in this University from its 
foundation. The Philosophy — mental, moral and political — 
taught here from the days of Dr. Smith to those of the pre- 
sent honored Provost, has always presented this connection as 
indissoluble. Let us learn from the new and fearful chapter 
of American history which we are now reading, how large a 
place belongs to sound learning and practical religion, in the 
science of American loyalty. We no more want a new reli- 
gion, or a new learning, than we want a new Constitution or a 
new flag. Superficialness in the principles, and looseness in 
the practice of what we have been taught from these Chairs, 
has been the origin of much of our political confusion. What 
we need is a more thorough scholarship, and a piety, less bel- 
ligerent and more intelligent — a character resting on knowl- 
edge and principles, rather than on forms and pretensions. 
They who reach this degree are the true Philomatlieans. 



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